Like Private Jessica Lynch, the now General David Petraeus has been yet another heavily- and quickly-promoted story of the Pentagon, looking desperately for heroism in failure. Petraeus has been a media darling from the first. Tom Clancy wrote about the training of Petraeus in his usual idiom of homosexual romance. He was written about in almost embarrassingly glowing terms after that.
The real heroism is easy to be find. When you walk through an airport and see young men and women serving us all, returning to a war they hate and see little point in out of comradeship and a desire to do their Constitutional duty honorably, that's heroism. Because there is nothing in it for them but a paycheck, bullets, schrapnel and honor. They are not going to be going on the lecture circuit at $25K an appearance.
The people who command these troops in an exercise they know cannot succeed have, repeatedly and cynically, failed their troops and the American people. General Petraeus is only one of the more-talented and more-skilled officers who has failed. General Petraeus has, as officers throughout history have done, traded ambition for duty.
There is a tremendous desire among soldiers to be real warfighters. Soldiering - which is the exercise of training so well for battles that they never happen - seems nonetheless a little pointless without combat. Soldiers feel the need to avoid becoming what Lord Byron describes as:
...........a sword laid by,
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.
David Petraeus, son-in-law of General William Knowlton who was the Superintendent of West Point at the time Petraeus married his daughter, has been a "forward" commander, in the sense that he has made a point to appear close to the front often. Arguably, he has been shot at by the enemy at some time, but it is unclear what act of "valor" is indicated by the "V for Valor" on his Bronze Star. The only time he has been actually shot is by his own soldier during a state-side training exercise. And although he was operated on by future Senator Bill Frist and is purported to have demanded his release from the hospital with 50 manly push-ups, it had to be a little embarrassing.
When valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with. - Shakespeare
Petraeus rose through the ranks to command the 101st Airborne, which is arguably the world's most lethal and effective forward infantry unit, and has been so for the more than fifty years before Petraeus got there. The "Screaming Eagles" naturally tore through every objective given them in 2003 and engaged in some of the closer fighting of the war. General Petraeus made note to reporters of the amount of ammunition they went through as proof of this.
Although it was decided that his unit was not needed for the capture of Baghdad, as such, Petraeus put himself out front in during the mission in Mosul. He even earned a reputation for candor by asking reporters: "Tell me where this ends?" in early recognition that the incomplete warplan was not heading Iraq or America in a good direction.
Petraeus was wise to make an arrangement with local Sunnis in Mosul to at least help keep the peace. He could not persuade the CIA, Army or Kurds to continue this process. He later shepherded through a new counter-insurgency manual for American officers. Thereupon he was put in charge of an Iraqi force which he helped grow quickly - utterly shot through with insurgents of all kinds.
Again:
When valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.
Petraeus, in his NY Times piece lauded the Iraqi men who took so much risk to receive their new guns, body armor and uniforms from America. And now we know why they did.
Petraeus had an essential role in the public propaganda of "standing up" the Iraqis which failed so badly that it lost his Secretary of Defense, and many Republicans, their jobs. Nevertheless, Republicans needed a name people trusted. "David Petraeus" was the only name they had. The Petraeus "brand" having been established, was used.
Despite never having gotten an answer to his "tell me where this ends" question, Petraeus apparently supported the surge before it was even official policy. Described by one former subordinate as "the most competitive man on earth," Petraeus apparently knew what it was going to take to put him on top. He'd married the dean's daughter; he'd done all his coursework; he'd gotten all the medals he could without actually discharging his weapon at the enemy. He'd made a name for himself, he had armed hundreds of thousands more Iraqis very quickly. Now it was time to give his Commander-In-Chief the benefit of all the credibility Petraeus could muster. To turn to Byron again:
This makes the madmen who have made men mad
By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings,
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,
And are themselves the fools to those they fool;
Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings
Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule:
And so the General who asked where it all would end has finally answered his own question:
Cry "Havoc!" And let slip the dogs of war.